1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to all forms of footwear, including street and athletic, as well as any other products benefiting from increased flexibility, better resistance to shock and shear forces, and more stable support. More particularly, the invention incorporates devices as a unitary integral insert or component with at least one internal (or mostly internal) sipe, including slits or channels or grooves and any other shape, including geometrically regular or non-regular, such as anthropomorphic (or animal) shapes, into a large variety of products including footwear using materials known in the art or their current or future equivalent, as well as materials that are very firm compared to those taught in the art.
Still more particularly, the unitary internal sipe insert or component provides improved flexibility to products utilizing them, as well as improved cushioning to absorb shock and/or shear forces, including through the use of firm materials, while also improving stability of support, and therefore the siped devices can be used in any existing product that provides or utilizes cushioning and stability. These products include human and other footwear, both soles and uppers, and orthotics; athletic, occupational and medical equipment and apparel; padding or cushioning, such as for equipment or tool handles and furniture; balls; tires; and any other structural or support elements in a mechanical, architectural or any other device. Still more particularly, the integral insert or component with at least one sipe, including in the form of a slit, can include a media such as a lubricant or glue of any useful characteristic such as viscosity or any material, including a magnetorheological fluid.
The invention further relates to at least one chamber or compartment or bladder surrounded, partially or completely, by at least one internal (or mostly internal) sipe, including at least partially in the form of a slit, for use in any footwear soles or uppers, or orthotic soles or uppers, including the use of firm materials, and for other flexibility, cushioning, and support uses in athletic equipment like helmets and apparel including protective padding and guards, as well as medical protective equipment and apparel, and other uses, such as protective flooring, improved furniture cushioning, balls and tires for wheels, and many other uses.
The internal sipe integral insert or component invention further can be usefully combined with the applicant's prior footwear inventions described in this application and expressly incorporated by reference herein below, including removable midsole structures and orthotics and chambers with controlled variable pressure, including control by computer, for example.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Existing devices are generally much less flexible than would be optimal, especially products for human (or animal or other biological-based) users, whose non-skeletal anatomical structures like bare foot soles generally remain flexible even when made hard by significant pressure caused by body weight, whereas the products interfacing directly with them are often much more rigid.
Taking footwear soles as one example, cushioning elements like gas bladders or chambers or compartments are typically fixed directly in other midsole foam plastic material to form a structure that is much more rigid than the sole of the human wearer's bare foot, which is relatively soft when unloaded and hard but still flexible when loaded under body weight. As a result, the support and cushioning of the bare foot are seriously degraded when shod in existing footwear, since the relatively rigid shoe sole drastically alters by obstructing the way in which the bare foot would otherwise interact with the ground underneath a wearer. The effective natural interface is replaced by an inferior artificial one.
The use of open or external traction sipes—that is, sipes in the form of slits or channels that typically are substantially vertical and open to an outside surface, particularly a ground-contracting surface—to provide also flexibility in footwear soles has been fully described by the applicant in prior applications, including the examples shown in FIGS. 55A-55C, 56, 57, and 73A-73D of both the applicant's prior footwear U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/190,087, published as Pub. No. 2005/0268487 A1 on Dec. 8, 2005, and the applicant's prior orthotic U.S. Pat. No. 7,010,869, issued Mar. 14, 2006, (as well as continuation U.S. application Ser. No. 11/108,034, published as Pub. No. 2005/0217142 A1 on Oct. 6, 2005), and in FIGS. 35-40 of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/179,887, published as Pub. No. US2005/0241183 on Nov. 3, 2005, all of which foregoing U.S. patents and published applications are herein incorporated by reference for completeness of disclosure.
The applicant first described such non-traction oriented open external sipes in footwear in PCT Application PCT/US90/06028 titled “Shoe Sole Structures Which Are Siped to Provide Natural Deformation Paralleling the Foot” filed 19 Oct. 1990 and published by WIPO as Int. Pub. No. WO 91/05491 on 2 May 1991. Such open external sipes principally provide flexibility to the footwear sole by providing the capability of the opposing surfaces of the sipe to separate easily from each other. However, external sipes are structurally unlike natural anatomical structures (since to be effective, they must be much deeper than surface skin texture like finger prints, the closest anatomical analogy).
Also, external sipes tend to introduce significant instability by creating excessive edge weakness in the shoe sole adjacent the sipes, just like a paperback book being unable to support weight when standing on end with the pages vertical, but stable when the book and pages are lying flat. External sipes by being open also collect debris in the sipes, seriously reducing sipe performance. In addition, the most optimal pattern and depth of such sipes is unknown and therefore difficult to ascertain directly, except as an error-prone trial and error process guided by second-guessing nature, since deep, open sipes are obviously not used in the design of the human foot. Moreover, the only way to get relatively seamless, continuous natural flexibility like the human foot sole using external sipes is to introduce a very large number of deep sipes on as many different axis as possible in the shoe sole, which produces an impractically soft and unstable shoe sole, the use of which would be roughly like trying to stand on the edge of a large urban area telephone book.
Instead, a much more reasonable and fool-proof procedure is to follow as closely as practical the natural design of the human anatomical foot sole structure with which it is intended to interface to create the closest-to-natural flexibility.
The use of a integral component with internal sipes in footwear soles like those described in this application overcome the problems of external sipes noted above and are naturally more optimal as well, since they more closely parallel structurally the natural anatomical structures of the wearer's bare foot sole. As one example, simply enveloping the outer surface of existing cushioning devices like gas bladders or foamed plastic Ethyl Vinyl Acetate (EVA) or Polyurethane (PU) with a new outer layer of material that is unattached (or at least partially unattached) thereby can creates if unglued an internal sipe between the inner surface of the new compartment and the outer surface of the existing bladder/midsole component, allowing the two surfaces to move relative to each other rather than being fixed to each other.
Especially in the common form of a slit structure seen in many example embodiments, the flexibility of the internal sipe is provided by this relative motion between opposing surfaces that in many the example embodiments are fully in contact with each other, again in contrast to the separating surfaces of external sipes; such surface contact is, of course, exclusive of any internal sipe media, which can be used as an additional enhancement, in contrast to the flexibility-obstructing debris unavoidably picked up by, and often clogging, open external sipes. As a result, the footwear sole in which at least one integral internal sipe insert or component is incorporated becomes much more flexible, much more like the wearer's bare foot sole itself, so that foot sole can interact with the ground naturally. The resulting footwear sole with internal sipes has improved, natural flexibility, improved cushioning from shock and shear forces, and better, more naturally stable support.
A limited use of internal sipes has also been described by the applicant in prior applications, including the examples shown in FIGS. 12A-12D, 60A-60E, and 70-71 of both the applicant's '087 and '034 published applications and '869 patent herein incorporated by reference above, which are generally unglued portions coinciding with lamination layer boundaries, such as between bottomsole and midsole layers. This older approach requires completely new and somewhat difficult approaches in the assembly of the footwear sole during manufacture, as well as significantly greater potential for problems of layer separation (especially bottom sole) since the inherent reduction in gluing surfaces makes the remaining gluing surfaces critical and under increased load; significantly increased positional accuracy in the application of glue is required. Also, the use of lubricating media (and the potential control thereof, including by microprocessor) is also more difficult, since the sipe is formed by existing parts and is not discretely enclosed with the new outer layer to contain the media, as it is in a new invention described in this application.
In contrast, a new invention of this application is a discrete device in the form of an integral component that can easily be inserted as a single simple step into the footwear sole during the manufacturing process or, alternatively, inserted in one single simple step by a wearer (into the upper portion of a midsole insert, for example, much like inserting an insole into an shoe), for whom the new extra layer provides buffering protection for the wearer from direct, potentially abrasive contact with a cushioning component (forming a portion of the inner, foot sole-contacting surface of the shoe sole, for example).
In addition, such a new invention allows easier and more effective containment of a lubricating media (including media with special capabilities, like magnetorheological fluid) within the integral internal sipe, so that the relative motion between inner surfaces of the sipe can be controlled by that media (and, alternatively, by direct computer control); it avoids the need for the use of closed-cell midsole materials or a special impermeable layer applied to the footwear sole material to prevent the sipe media from leaking away.
The new invention also makes manufacturing easier and inherently more accurate, since the introduction of the fluid media can be better control during a separate process when the separate unitary insert or component 510/511/513 is manufactured by itself, rather than attempting to integrate that process into the already complex sole or orthotic molding and assembly process.
Accordingly, it is a general object of one or more embodiments of the invention to elaborate upon the application of the use of a device in the form of an insertable integral component with one or more internal sipes to improve the flexibility, cushioning, and stability of footwear and other products.
It is still another object of one or more embodiments of the invention to provide footwear having an integral insert or component with at least one internal (or mostly internal) sipes, including slits or channels or grooves and any other shape, including geometrically regular or non-regular, such as anthropomorphic or animal shapes, to improve flexibility, cushioning and stability.
It is still another object of one or more embodiments of the invention to include an insertable integral device with one or more internal sipes that include a media such as a lubricant or glue of any useful characteristic such as viscosity or any material, including a magnetorheological fluid.
It is another object of one or more embodiments of the invention to create a shoe sole with flexibility, support and cushioning that is provided by siped chambers or compartments or bladders in the footwear sole or upper or orthotics. The compartments or chambers or bladders are surrounded, partially or completely, by at least one internal (or mostly internal) sipe, including in the form of a slit, for use in any footwear soles or uppers, or orthotic soles or uppers, and for other flexibility, cushioning, and stability uses in athletic equipment like helmets and apparel including protective padding and guards, as well as medical protective equipment and apparel, and other uses, such as protective flooring, improved furniture cushioning, balls and tires for wheels, and many other uses.
It is another object of one or more embodiments of the invention to create footwear, orthotic or other products with at least one outer chamber; at least one inner chamber inside the outer chamber; the outer chamber and the inner chamber being separated at least in part by an internal sipe, including in the form of a slit; at least a portion of an inner surface of the outer chamber forming at least a portion of an inner surface of the internal sipe; and the internal sipe providing increased flexibility, cushioning, and stability for the footwear, orthotic or other product.
A further object of one or more embodiments of the invention is to combine the integral insert or component with at least one internal sipe with the applicant's prior footwear inventions described and herein incorporated by reference in this application, including removable midsole structures and orthotics and chambers with controlled variable pressure, including control by computer.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent from the summary and detailed description of the invention, which follow, taken with the accompanying drawings.